Stream

Every now and then an artist emerges from the depths, plucked out of thin air, and causes the world to stir. With some good Internet fortune and a major co-sign from Pharrell, Maggie Rogers finds herself in that very (viral) situation. After completely blowing Skateboard P’s mind during his masterclass at NYU, Rogers went back to work to mix and master her demo of “Alaska.” The young talent has finally unveiled the polished product, and the result is an amazing blend of folk, dance, and pop that glitters and bounces just as much as it speaks with honesty and vulnerability.

Stream Maggie Roger’s “Alaska” below, and sing along to the lyrics too!

Usually I’m not the guy on the blog that brings some fresh music onto the scene, but the times they are a’changin’, I guess. House Fire first came up on my radar a few weeks ago when one of my friends told me something like, “Yeah man my friend’s in a band, they’re releasing an EP soon, you should blog about it.” Yeah, okay, whatever. But I checked them out because I was bored, and to say that I was pleasantly surprised is a severe understatement.

House Fire brings the chill, relaxing vibes that you’d expect from a band formed in SoCal but adds a little bit of throwback flare that you don’t find very often in today’s indie rock scene. Stream and download their Days End EP below, and make sure you check them out on Facebook and Twitter too.

As if they knew that I needed a little something to get me through this week from hell, SomeKindaWonderful decided to premiere their brand-new, trippy track “Police.” It brings you in nice and easy with some smooth vocals, but slowly it starts to hit you and soon enough you’re like “Holy crap man why am I sweating I’m just sitting here in the library and it’s kinda cold and I’m not even at practice like what’s with the sweat Body am I at a concert” and then you punch a hole through the closest wall, which sucks because you have a test tonight and need that hand to write with.

There is a general fear when listening to a debut project from your “new favorite band” because you are well aware that a few good songs does not necessarily translate into a succinct debut. Well, what most people fail to realize is that bands know this. They get that. So yes, maybe we have heard the best songs on Swim Deep’s Where The Heaven Are We. But also, this is an album. Each song plays off each other and together convey a feeling. According to NME, lead singer Austin Williams describes the feeling as, “tiny coloured stars beaming from inside a cloud, and they’re beaming out prism colours.” He also says of Where The Heaven Are We:

There’s a vibration running through the album, a feel-good vibe, a positive take on music. I think we got bored of sad music and people moaning about shit. You need some pump in your veins. I feel bad for people who don’t do what they love, who hate what they do. I feel frustrated on their behalf. This album is for them.

So far, I can’t say I disagree. The album is out on August 5th. Pre-order it here.

Something clicked for Crystal Fighters on this album. I mean, you know a band is confident in their album when the four lead singles are the first four songs of the project. The bottom six tracks continue the jam streak for the band from London (via Spain).

We’ve been rolling with the crew of Radical Something since they first started, and it’s always great to get new material from them. They’re a unique group, fusing together hip hop, pop and acoustic roots into their very own sound.

They recently released their video for You Feel Amazing directed by @JoeBusy_, which chronicles what it’s like being on tour for them. They’ve been killing it on the road, and I suggest you go to see them live if you ever have the opportunity–I have yet to be able to do so myself, but I’ve heard nothing but great things.

Check out the video below, and download the free MP3 while you’re at it.

My life has recently changed. I have taken a liking to country, and it truly has changed my life. I’m not exactly sure how it happened–maybe from kids playing it at school, maybe from my sister playing it at home, but one day I just couldn’t stop listening to it and it’s been in heavy rotation ever since.

A lot of people hate country–trust me, I understand that. I couldn’t listen to it until about a week and a half ago, and I couldn’t understand what anyone saw in it. Now I’ve completely flip flopped. When people tell me they can’t listen to country now, it makes no sense to me.

Anyway, these are my favorite country songs right now, the songs that got me into country in the first place.

By all means, PLEASE help me grow my country collection. Let me know in the comments what else I should be listening to!

Over the past year and a half, I’ve gotten increasingly into jazz music. My dad’s favorite album is Miles Davis’ magnum opus Kind of Blue, so I was introduced to the genre at a young age and I’ve always enjoyed listening to it when my family played it at parties and when I saw it performed live. However, I never really bothered to start my own collection of jazz music. That all changed when a friend of mine got a record player and we started to listen to old jazz records on an almost constant basis. Ever since then, I’ve gotten pretty serious into the classics, but hadn’t really found any up and coming jazz musicians that I really was excited about.

That all changed when I first heard BBNG. I’ll admit, I didn’t listen to them until they first started doing their Odd Future covers, but ever since then I’ve been really excited about each new release they’ve put out.

It’s really cool to me to see such a contemporary jazz group–a group that covers an incredibly diverse range of genres, spanning from Earl Sweatshirt’s “Earl” to Kanye West’s Flashing Lights to James Blake’s CMYK–get such independent groundswell. It’s been really cool seeing their progressing recognition–of course, the Odd Future members rep BBNG all day long, but artists such as Questlove have also taken notice of BBNG’s young talent. It’s interesting to see the clash of their style with the style of Odd Future–both acts have vicious, spitfire delivery, offering their art with no regrets and no reservations.

To put it in more direct terms, they give zero fucks; they’re here to make what they want to make, to play what they want to play, and they do it damn well.

Check out some of my favorite tracks streaming below, and head over to BBNG.com to download the entire album, free of charge. Best $0 you’ll ever spend in your life, I promise you.

No one above the age of 21 was involved in the making of thisalbum, it was created by a bunch of kids. This album wasrecorded in one 10 hour session with no song having morethan two takes, it was mixed and mastered completely byourselves. Thanks to our friends, family, loved ones and anyonewho fucks with us.

Tha Homie Spit Spitta aka Curren$y aka the Pilot aka the captain of the Jet Life crew teams up with Wale for his newest release off of of The Stoned Immaculate, which is set to drop on June 5.

Some nice, smooth production here by B!nk, Wale and Spitta both go in on their verses, this one receives high grades de moi. My one caveate here–Wale says being addicted to Barney’s is “g shit.” No, son, it’s not. Da fuck is g about this, Douglas?

We blessed to be here. It’s a blessing for y’all to be here with us

Well said, Whale, well said. Lol see what I did there? PS guys I’m so good at Photoshop look

Wow. Going into this, I was excited because this is one of my favorite OnCue songs and I knew that it would be Just Blaze’s directorial debut. Needless to say, my expectations were huge.

Shockingly, the finished product blew my expectations out of the water. This is just too good.

Cuey told me they’ve been sitting on this for a couple months as it was filmed a long time ago, and finally decided the time was right to drop it.

Initially, Cuey was going to play the lead role, but his creative director Adam Ross played it as the team decided he was better suited for the role. I don’t know if he did a better job than Cuey himself would have done, but he definitely kills the performance.

The great thing about the video is that it isn’t just visually really well done–well framed shots, crispy pixels, one beautiful bit of facial hair–it’s got it all.